Post Mortem: Suits Boss on That Very Revealing Cliffhanger, Harvey's Trust Issues and More

The following contains spoilers from Thursday’s episode of Suits. If you have yet to watch, avert your eyes now.

On Thursday’s season finale of Suits, the action at the law firm got heated, in several senses of the word. And that’s all we’ll say until after the jump, just to make sure the unspoiled remain that way. (But you’re gonna want to read on, because there’s good stuff ahead.)

All clear? OK. After two seasons of pent-up sexual tension and secrets, Mike finally revealed to Rachel that he never went to Harvard. And she reacted to the news with two slaps — but that didn’t stop them from having sex in the file room.

Although the steamy – and kind of angry – consummation of Mike and Rachel’s will they/won’t they relationship was somewhat risque for a USA Network show, executive producer Aaron Korsh tells TVLine there were no objections from the big bosses.

“We got zero pushback,” he says. In fact, the network bigwigs actually helped him with an editing question. “When I first watched the scene, I loved it. I was there when they shot it. As soon as they did the first take of it, I was like, ‘This is going to be awesome!’ I loved what they were doing. And it only got better from there.”

Later, Korsh had a moment where he thought “if it was just three seconds shorter, it might be more impactful. Then I watched it again and I thought, ‘Eh, I’m not sure. I really love it the way it is.’”

To solve his dilemma, he asked the execs at USA to weigh in – and they were split, too, until word came down from the top. “Evidently, I think [NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group Chairman] Bonnie Hammer watched it,” he continues. “It’s very rare – I don’t believe we’ve ever gotten notes from Bonnie Hammer. Maybe on the pilot, but I can’t remember. Bonnie Hammer thought it might be better if it was three seconds shorter. I thought, ‘This is great. I’m torn anyway. Let’s just do it.’”

And so “three random seconds” were taken out of the sequence, but “it wasn’t any particular shots that were too racy,” explains the EP.

As for why he decided to pair the big reveal with Mike and Rachel’s first time, Korsh says, “It was always in my mind that the secret would come out at the same time they slept together… If Mike sleeps with her and doesn’t tell her the secret, that is a not a good thing for his character. He’s always said he’s not going to have lies between the two of them… Just instinctively, it seemed like the two should go hand in hand and that should lead to them having a fight.”

The fact that the big moment Mike-and-Rachel fans have been waiting for came amid yelling and anger is a sign that things won’t be simple for the pair, despite having finally sealed the deal.

“Their struggle for Season 3 is going to be: Can Rachel really accept this guy who has everything that she wants, but hasn’t earned it?” previews Korsh. “This fraud is a form of betrayal. If she wants to accept it, it’s going to be a process. It’s not just going to happen easily.”

Read on to find out what the EP revealed about the finale’s other big developments…

IS HARVEY’S BROTHER COMING TO TOWN? | Yes and no. “It was not put in there as a seed to be planted for next season. It was actually put in there to answer some [questions about] Harvey’s past, which is what people are always longing for and what we like to do. We may pick up on that scene for next year. We may not. I would imagine, at some point, we’re going to meet Harvey’s brother.”

HOW HONEST WAS HARVEY WITH SCOTTIE? | “It’s not that Harvey doesn’t have feelings for Scottie or thinks he doesn’t have feelings for Scottie. It’s that he doesn’t trust Scottie. As we’ve revealed now with Harvey’s issues with his mom, it’s very hard for him to untangle his heart towards Scottie if he doesn’t trust her. That’s the core of his issues with the world in general and women in particular. I don’t know that he’s being dishonest. I think he’s protecting himself.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE FIRM? | Scottie’s British bosses will be sticking around for “at least a period of time,” Korsh says. “We’re moving forward with this merger presumably, and that’s going to have consequences. It’s like you’re entering into a new relationship. There’s going to be problems. There’s going to be things to work out. There’s going to be pleasant surprises. There’s going to be unpleasant surprises.”

I found myself not caring much about all of the merger nonsense, getting rid of Hardman (again) last week felt like the end of the season to me. But that Mike and Rachel scene at the end…awesome, and FINALLY!

I feel like Mike’s secret reveal wasn’t enough. All he told her was that he didn’t go to Harvard. He never said he didn’t have a law degree. There is a big difference between the two admissions, and Rachel may not have made that leap. It’s one thing for him to be hired by the firm and lie about his schooling because of their hiring policy. It’s another thing to let someone without a law degree practice law. Unless she doesn’t realize that Harvey knew the whole time, but I think she’s smart enough to have picked up on that.

I don’t know. I think the fact that he has been keeping this from her….and she knows he’s been hiding something for awhile….is telling enough for her to know that when he said he’s a fraud, he meant no law degree. The fact that he went to say NYU and not Harvard is really not that big of a secret. Why keep that from her? Why end things with her because of that? So I think she figured it out….hence the three slaps.

On another note, I do not like Jessica. I did when the show started, but I have slowly began to find her as dislikable as Hardman.

Yes, Jessica had become so nasty, it’s almost too severe a character change. I don’t like the games she plays with Harvey and wonder why she just doesn’t deep/six him if he irritates him so much. And really writers there is nothing remotely redeemable about Louis. Don’t know what Jessica really sees in him. Yes, I know the writers find him an easy convenience for conflict and humor, but it pushes credibility shark wards that he’s so valuable to the firm.

The whole thing with Jessica I feel is, as much as she wants to let Harvey run wild to win cases for the firm, his ego about it has gotten way too far out of control. He acts like nothing can be done in that firm without either his involvement and/or approval of every decision. And his name is not on the door to do that. And as much as I don’t like the fact that it was done, he needed to be taken down a peg or two and have his ego put in check. I’m not a fan at all of what she did to Mike, but its the only way she could have gotten him to stop what he was doing.

Yes, but Harvey is Harvey because of Jessica. You don’t train the dog to be an attack dog, then punish him for defending the house against the stranger at the door, when you didn’t tell him that it wasn’t a stranger but a welcome guest. It’s a simple metaphor, but that’s essentially what it is. She trained him….mentored him….leaned on him to do what needed to be done, to pull in big clients, to close the deals. He acts like he should be involved in the big decisions with the firm because that’s what she’s lead him to believe. You don’t groom him with the end goal of becoming partner, then shut him out when he gets close to the finish line. That’s what she’s done over this past season. There’s a reason Harvey says over and over again ‘if you’d tell me what’s going on, then I’d know your plan.’ I think there was some truth to what Harvey said….that it’s not just a lack of trust in him, but also fear of him. Throughout the episode, Jessica talked about having the power, controlling Harvey, and him learning his place. Those are not things you say about a person you want to partner with….it’s not the definition of partnership. She may talk a big game about wanting him as a partner, putting his name right up there beside hers, but her actions say otherwise.

Haven’t they shown from time to time how good Louis is at the financial side of things? Hasn’t he found loopholes and back doors where others couldn’t? We’ve just never really seen him in action in open court, I guess.

I think, and its just my opinion the whole mike/rachel will/wont scenario is a filler in every episodes. This thread is not connected to major arc of the story. Hell, sometime i even skip it. The part that gives me immense joy is the conversation between mike and harvey. i hope they would introduce some of more interesting characters with unique persona like DONNA, Louis etc.

It’s way too early to know. If we’re lucky, Bravo Canada will announce it two months before it premieres. They’ve been pretty good recently in getting the shows on the air close to the American air dates (and they ARE simulcasting Dallas and Monday Mornings with TNT), so hopefully they can do the same with Suits next season. :-)

Must just be me but I thought it was a terrible season finale expected better from suits writters.

When is mike going to start feeling the consequeneces of his lies first of jessica finds out he a fraud and let’s him keep his job with nothing else said about it.

Then now rachel finds out that he has everything she ever wanted and he never went to havard and earned it but she says oh wait he has lied to me cheated etc but I’m going to reward him by sleeping with him doesn’t make sense to me.

I feel like this is the beginning of Mike feeling the consequences of his lies. He has lost Harvey’s trust (and you could see how much that hurt him), he had Jessica actually use it against him to force him to go against Harvey (and it is doubtful that will be the ONLY time she will use it to coerce him), and just because he & Rachel gave in during an emotionally charged moment doesn’t mean she’s just going to let it slide. And there is no telling how it could affect his situation at work with the merger.

Couldn’t agree more – the whole thing seemed like filler to me until the Mike and Rachel scene. We were given no details of the suit Harvey was filing to prevent the merger (unlike the Hardman/Tanner scandal where we knew all the facts) and then they skip the whole proceeding the day of until Harvey confronts Mike in the bathroom. The goal was obviously to get Mike to lose his cool so he would tell Rachel the truth, and I agree that it made sense to have them do the dirty immediately after, but I think there were better ways they could have put Mike at witt’s end.

Jessica keeps Mike around because he’s good at what he does. He’s the best associate in the firm, and both Jessica and Harvey know that, that’s why they keep him around. Jessica blackmailing him shows that she won’t take Mike at face value and can control him very easily, something that he nor Harvey likes, but if he doesn’t comply with the CEO of the company then he (Mike) will be going to jail.

Rachel and Mike have been simmering for a while, and yes he’s lied and cheated to her, but when he did tell her the truth (which is what she’s wanted all along) she was upset and angry. Angry leads to angry sex and just because it’s happened once, it doesn’t mean that it will happen again. Once Rachel sits down and thinks about it all she’s going to regret it and there will be consequences of it

The ending scene with mike and rachel was incredibly hot and steamy. I loved it. I was like -damn, finally!. They’ve had this whole unresolved sexual tension and dance since the beginning and it was about time. The thing with that scene and what made it so intense is that they were finally free. Well in that moment at least. Besides the beginning complications with rachel not realizing her feelings yet, jenny etc they’ve had no reason not to be together. No concrete reason from her stand point. Mike never gave her a good reason and it was obvious they both liked and wanted to still be together. So in that moment in the file room everything was finally clear so they reacted instinctively. Obviously when that emotional rush is over they’ll have to deal with the reality of the situation. I just love m/r. Not everyone might but I think they’re great together.

I didn’t believe Rachel’s reaction. Sorry…just didn’t. I think she is going to have huge issues with what is going on once it all sinks in.

I also think the whole Mike never went to law school was an early plot device that isn’t really needed anymore so I hope they figure out a way to make him legitimate. I have no idea what that would be. If the show goes off the air and he is still a fraud, I will be disappointed.

For me last night’s episode made little sense and I was totally disappointed. I felt the scene in the file room between Mike and Rachel was unnecessary. For me the thing I loved so much about the show was the camaraderie between Harvey and Mike, and the fact that by the end of the show Harvey and Mike always won. They were also very funny together and played off each other. So the fact that lately Harvey has been bested at every turn and that Jessica did what she did last night to Harvey totally turned me off. I just didn’t understand what the episode was about at all. Why would she mess up her own firms winning or losing?

I agree the finale was disappointing. Seemed like the whole hour was dedicated to getting things to a point where Mike would lose his cool and tell Rachel, and then they’d do it. No facts about the lawsuit Harvey filed to prevent the merger, what Scottie gave Mike that would win the case, etc. The beauty of the Hardman/Tanner scandal was that each episode, one or two more facts presented themselves, hung around, and then all came to a conclusion in the summer finale. Not the case here. I disagree on the necessity of the file room scene though; I think it was very necessary and fitting. Both characters have so much pent up frustration, not only with each other but with thier current situations (Rachel not going to Harvard, Mike’s problems with Harvey and Jessica), it seems plausible to just let it all out then and there. And I do think it was smart to use Rachel’s denial from Harvard as a segway to Mike admitting that secret to her.

Anyone else notice that the whole big case that shook up everything was about… Seinfeld? Or nothing. No one ever notices when the shark gets jumped until later, but that might have been it Oh yeah, Mike and Rachel got together. Who saw that coming? Besides everyone. I was hoping for the shows sake she’d go to Harvard. Except then last week she said she was glad she didn’t. And this week the opposite. Worst season finale by far for the show.

1) Shocked that the final scene was on television. One of the more explicit scenes I’ve seen (pardon the pun) on regular cable.

2) It made complete sense, considering that there has always been this imbalance between the two characters with Mike “being a Harvard Law grad” and Rachel feel inferior. This admission, while shattering to Rachel, artfully brought the two to the same level. In every sense of the word.

3) Yes, this show has been about Harvey’s invulnerability in terms of wins and losses, which made his arrogance all the more charming. But the show has attempted to shift into his vulnerability, and drastically, using Jessica as the leverage for the turn. We’ll see if it can pull it off, because the ‘lightness’ of the show’s first season (nothing hit deep) is now by the wayside. That will either catapult the show into greatness or sink it into mediocrity. We’ll see this summer.

This interview was kinda lame. They should have added more in-depth questions.

1. Was the merger inspired by Sterling Cooper’s merger with British advertising firm PP&L on Mad Men? It seems to bring about the same type of plot developments.

2. Are we supposed to assume Mike admitted to not having a law degree or to not having graduated from Harvard? It’s very different if Rachel knows he never studied law as opposed to him doing his 4 years somewhere else.

3. Is it coincidental that their names are Mike “ROSS” & “RACHEL” Zane? Or is their relationship partially inspired by the Friends stars who always had the “will they or won’t they end up together” vibe right up until the end of the series.

Anyway, there are much better questions to ask than asking about Harvey’s feelings or the cliche “What’s next for the show?”

Agreed to a point. Harvey’s feelings are a valid thing to question, though it didn’t need a subheading if you ask me. But yeah, I’ve seen better post-mortems for less involved finales. There are a ton of things that could have been questioned and addressed here, and instead we got this. And what was with the major three things? One is mostly inconsequential. Would I like to meet Harvey’s brother? Eh, maybe. Do i care enough about that for it to be an interview question? Not even a little. And like you said, what’s next for the firm is going to be asked and answered a million times between now and June. This was pretty phoned in.

Honestly, I did not care for this season at all. I used to like how they had different cases each week and then the story would finish at the end of the show. I hated all of this continuous storyline that again, had to deal with Hardman. No offense, but Hardman is/was a useless character and he really brought down the show.
The only thing I loved about the finale was Louis and his British twin….it was funny and entertaining. There were also a few funny Downton Abbey liners that were cute.
The whole Mike and Rachel thing was just thrown in there. The whole Rachel not getting into Harvard was a ridiculous plot…..with her father being who he is, she would have gotten in without question or she could have had Daddy make a phone call.
Also, where the hell was Donna this season? She barely made an impact this season at all. I really hope that in the next season, we explore Donna and Harvey’s past and a possible future for them. I think Scottie needs to go; she is definitely not right for Harvey. Last, but not least, what happened to Jessica? I thought I liked her when the show first started, but now she has made a drastic change for the worst. She is such a miserable and unlikeable character. I just want Harvey to take Louis, Donna, and Mike, and start a new firm. Harvey was gypped big time this season.

Loved the season finale EXCEPT for Mike and Rachel hooking up. Mike talks about how he’s losing everybody, and Harvey just fired him (attempted to, anyway) because he feels like Mike betrayed him, so Mike goes and does the ONE thing Harvey explicity asked him not to do which is tell Rachel his secret. It makes Mike look like a complete a-hole.

Hated Rachel slapping Mike as well. Especially multiple times. That is ABUSE. You are a grown woman, working in a law office, if you can’t figure out something as simple as learning a way to convey your anger other than resorting to violence, than you probably aren’t cut out to be a lawyer after all.

How THIS scenario leads to raunchy UNPROTECTED sex in the file room, is beyond me. Might as well throw in a pregnancy scare next season to give it that full soap opera feel that the very last scene had.

This episode would have been so much better if they just ended with Harvey shaking Darby’s hand. Disappointed that this was the note the season decided to end on…

I have to admit I wish the season final included more information on the cases… the whole power struggle was been played out too much I think…can we go back to the cases and witty dialogue between Harvey and Mike? Also, I really do wish my beloved Rachel would of gone off to Harvard and then returned as a Harvard Grad and seeing some more character development… but I definitely can’t complain about the steamy scene between Mike and Rachel.. although I do agree it should of happened at a different time.. but still, love those too!! Am I the only one that hated Jenny? How do you go from sleeping with one friend to sleeping with the other? I get the whole you can’t help who you fall for.. but seriously, ugh. Anyways, hope to see more DONNA! Seriously why isn’t she getting more screen time?! Whatever lies ahead, I’m excited for how the writers are going to play out the whole “oh my god we just had sex in the file room!”, the new merger and ESPECIALLY how Harvey and Mike’s relationship will heal.

Did Mike beat Jessica in the test she gave him at the end of the first episode of season 2? From what i could figure out is that he did, i think Jessica or mike mentioned late on in season 2 that she had to use the computer at some point.

I think the final scene between Mike and Rachel was really well done, and it has been simmering for a while, whether or not it complicates things as I am sure it will, it was required to bring that tension to an end. Now if Scotty can get Harvey in the same manner Harvey may be likeable towards females…..hardly likely.
Just have to wait for season 3

I love the understanding between Harvey and Donna. It is almost telepathic. I am beginning to like Jessica less and less with her new approach. I think its good Mike and Rachel broke the ice finally, waiting for that for so long. I can’t wait for season 3.
Jheeze!!!

I love the show, it was exquisite, the whole plot fitted perfectly and more especially i love the scene where M/R had Sex! It was cool actually, i gotta admit i saw that one coming. i’m a big/huge Mike/Rachel shipper.
SUITS! you got me.
I just can’t wait for season 3

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I’m sorry to be a hater but Rachel really irritates me. Her attitude right from the very beginning. They ruined what could have been a very lovable character! I think there needs to new things for Mike in upcoming seasons. I’m sorry, Rachel is a bit messed up (not really personally, just her situation), so she should go.